At many Chinese restaurants, most non-Chinese patrons receive the “American menu,” with a more authentic menu available on request.

At Sichuan Cuisine, everything makes it to the main menu, including things that most Westerners find a little funky.

Here's the thing: The unusual stuff is very good. This isn't an adventure in some type of culinary machismo, where people dare each other on who can eat the weirdest piece of an animal. Instead, it's some excellent flavors and textures from items that don't often make their way to restaurant menus in this country. Think of pig ear, beef tendon and tripe.

Don't worry, several of the less challenging items turned out pretty well, too.

For example, the Kung Pao Chicken, a common item that's usually very Westernized, here is a rich sauce with dried chiles and Sichuan peppercorns, and it has a nice balance of flavors where the spices never overpowered the rest of the dish.

That's just one on a broad menu of standard dishes and lunch specials, served with soup and rice.

Or push the comfort zone and order some Kung Pao duck tongue. The duck tongues contain lots of fat and fry up into crisp bits of goodness that bring more elements of texture and flavors to the dish. The only aspect of the dish that took a little practice was removing the very thin and narrow bone that ran through the middle of the tongue.

Most Popular

One dish that sounded more unusual than it tasted, the beef tendon and tripe in chile oil, proved a favorite. The tendon and tripe are served very thinly sliced and tossed in the chile oil with fresh herbs. The meat had a slightly chewy texture but incredible beefy flavor that paired with the spicy oil, with the fresh herbs adding a fresh crunch and brightness of flavor. The tripe added more texture than flavor but it took on the essence of the oil nicely.

A cold Sichuan noodle dish also woke up the taste buds in anticipation of what's coming later. It was a mixture of soba noodles sturdy enough to stand up to the garlicky, spicy sauce, and made for a snack that's good enough for a meal. Wash it down with a cold beer, and it's soulful in a way that transcends cultures.

Speaking of beer, this restaurant doesn't have a liquor license, but this is a menu that cries out for good lagers, a crisp Riesling or Gewürztraminer or a not-too-yeasty sparkling wine. So bring your own bottles, bottle openers and glassware.

Throughout the menu, the hot and spicy Sichuan cuisine certainly featured plenty of spice, but rarely was it mouth-searing or overpowering. Maybe when we bit into a mouth-numbing Sichuan peppercorn, but those moments didn't happen too often. The sauce came close to overwhelming a lamb dish, but the spices instead deftly paired the aromatic notes of the sauce with the earthy meat. Elsewhere, the chile oil made an appetizer of sliced pig ear into something special. Another hot, spicy and slightly oily sauce completed the Ma Po Tofu, which also included bits of a ground meat with the soft tofu and spicy sauce.

The pleasant heat brought life to a normally bland tilapia, one of the whole-fish options. Nearly swimming on the plate, it was truly something special. The sauce, whether on the fish or on top of white rice, elevated everything it flavored.

A couple of more common Americanized items didn't fare as well. The disappointing hot and sour soup that accompanied a lunch special definitely had the sour element, but none of the counterbalancing flavors. A lunch special of chicken and broccoli was extremely bland.

One item tasted as it should, but I'll admit was a bit much for me. The crispy pork intestine with three chiles combined fresh jalapeños and two types of dried chiles and the texture was as it should be. Then the intestine aftertaste kicked in and it was a little strong. In San Antonio, the best comparison is to think of tripas with hot Chinese seasonings. If you like tripas, give it a try.

Next visit will be for the Hot Pot. Lots of families sitting near our table ordered that dish, and it looked inviting.